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The 2003 package of investigative stories known as "A Dangerous Business" ranks highly among adoring muckrakers. It was put together as a joint PBS Frontline episode and series of articles in the New York Times, all led by journalistic juggernaut, Lowell Bergman. The series highlighted in excruciating detail workplace safety problems at a pipe manufacturing plant in Tyler, Texas, owned by the Alabama-based company, McWane, Inc. Read more »

Chronicle gossip sluts Matier & Ross caught up with an interesting scoop today involving a guy who can’t seem to stay out of trouble. His name is Arkady Zlobinsky. That’s him below in a photo the Chron ran, which kinda looks more like a Glamour Shot stolen from a bargain-bin picture frame than a staff-produced image. Read more »

There are times that I've wondered about this, too, and asked whether the two major parties have any real differences. Gold help me, I supported Nader in 2000, out of frustration over the Clinton Administration's economic policies.

But then you get a reminder like this. No Supreme Court justice appointed by a Democrat these days would have supported an attack on reproductive rights. 5-4, with Bush's guys in the lead. It's just going to get worse.

We've often accused the San Francisco Chronicle of acting like a public-relations mouthpiece for Pacific Gas and Electric Company. But it's not even funny anymore: The Chron today has a big front-page ad from PG&E -- and, perhaps not coincidentally, the paper almost totally ignored the news about a key step toward public power.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Bevan Dufty are apparently speaking again, or at least speaking together to other people. We say this because they just issued a press release saying that they've "asked the Port Director to explore the feasibility of having a no-alcohol entertainment event at Piers 30-32 for Wednesday, October 31, 2007." All of which is City goobledegook, which, roughly translated, means, 'We want to hold Halloween on the waterfront, but no, you won't be able to have a stiff drink to take the chilly edge off. '

Maybe I've become horribly desensitized to unexpected, unexplainable, realtime violence in the past four years, thanks to constant devastating casualty reports coming back from the country we fucked up even more, but the first thing that jumped into my head on hearing about Virginia Tech -- other than thinking the AP had made a typo when they reported 29 dead an hour after reporting 1 dead -- was: "Isn't this what it's like in Iraq, like, three times a day?"

The V-Tech tragedy is horrendous and hits geographically closer to home, but try watching this, called "Brains on Read more »

Ever since the California State Assembly passed AB 117 in 2002 legalizing “Community Choice Aggregation” (CCA) public power advocates have been eagerly awaiting the day San Francisco would get the legislative ball rolling and start divorce proceedings with it’s current electricity provider, Pacific Gas and Electric.

By the way, Virigina was one of only two states that as recently as 2004 was defying the U.S. Supreme Court and enforcing anti-sodomy laws. So it's perfectly okay to buy guns and kill people in that great state, but you can going to jail for being gay.

(For the record: Nobody knows yet where Cho bought his guns; if it turns out that he got them in Texas or something, or that he bought them illegally from a dealer somewhere, I will apologize to the Great State of VA -- sort of.

I'm surprised that this hasn't gotten more attention: Immediately after hearing of the horror at Virginia Tech, President Bush express his condolences for the victims -- then made a point of commenting about "the right to bear arms."

The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. Certainly, bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting ... Read more »